<p>I’m only on post 195, but I follow UC admissions pretty closely,both the stats, the forums, and in real life, and Caliiforniaaa, if your d and her friends are “into” their stats, I would not discourage them, and I might even encourage them, especially with regard to getting on track for the right “rigor” ( meaning setting yourself up, to take lots of AP’s). I will post links to the latest data on UC freshman admit profiles, and you can see that the right “stats” significantly increase your chances of admission. So if they are “into it”, and good at “it”, I think they will be rewarded, at least at most UC’s. It seems just about right for the top ten percent of kids I think it was designed for, even though some top one percent might end up feeling shorted in April. My guess is, by November, they too are thriving. </p>
<p>With regard to AP’s; I understand your schools “profile” is taken into account, but I can’t help think your high school, who you hang out with, and your community play a HUGE role, even among middle class families in this regard. Most people would consider me well off and well educated, but I had no idea about the implications of the math class your kid is offered in the sixth grade. I don’t know that I would have done anything differently, since in retrospect, I thinkmits better to let the chips fall where they may. By the way, my D got into every UC she applied to, except UCLA, and including Cal, but as parents, we were glad she chose the environment of NC, and Duke. Son got waitlisted at Riverside.</p>
<p>Coming to this thread late, but I just wanted to add - Both my kids went through the UC admission process and some of you don’t appear to realize that two essays are required.</p>
<p>One of them is exclusively on the topic of hardships and challenges. Everyone has to do it. My middle-class kids, and many others I’ve spoken to, hated have to frame their history in those terms. But it was required, and they had items in their histories that actually gave them hardship “points” at some UCs, so they had to include those items. If you were to judge these essays without that context, many would seem ill advised, or even ridiculous. This is an area where kids who have real challenges or hardships, will be able to look a lot better than their more privileged peers. </p>
<p>Not only that, some UC programs, in science particularly, specifically require applicants to discuss their interest and preparation in the type of science they plan to study in the broader personal statement. S had to scrap his carefully crafted common app. essay and substitute with a pretty mundane essay about his interest in chemistry, because it was required. This was particularly irksome because only one UC (Berkeley) required it, but you have to submit the same essay to every UC. Some of his admission readers probably did not even know that the reason the essay was so narrow was that it was required by one school. I think that probably explains a couple of the Frontline essays that seem awfully dull. So the context is important and that seems lacking in the Frontline examples.</p>
<p>On the holistic thing - my little-hardship, non-minority kids did fine in the UC admission process, as did most of the other kids I know. I don’t think it’s as extreme as its portrayed.</p>
<p>Doughmom, there are no “hardship points” for UC Berkeley; that’s a misunderstanding. Several other UC campuses used to use a point system in their comprehensive review (which was visible on their admissions websites), but holistic review is now the policy for all UC campuses.</p>
<p>Also, it isn’t “UC programs in science” that ask students to write about their interests in their proposed major. The Berkeley guide on the personal statement says only that the university’s two professional schools (College of Engineering and College of Chemistry) ask students to talk about their intended field of study. This advice doesn’t apply to students who want to major in the sciences in the College of Letters and Sciences or the College of Natural Resources.</p>
<p>Actually, the one who actually got rejected was #4; the article lists #3 as being admitted, even though the “experienced admissions reader” was not impressed (despite the “raw brain power”).</p>
<p>UK university selection and admissions is far simpler because high school grading is theoretically standardized, and the population is smaller so there isn’t a huge number of applicants for any given university whose academic credentials are packed at the top of the scale.</p>
<p>LF often criticizes sources but rarely puts facts on the table herself, with citations or not. This article in this thread was from the New York Times, arguably the most prestigious newspaper in the country. If I had not started a thread based on it, someone else probably would have.</p>
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<p>There is random noise on top of predictable heritability. The fact that height is strongly heritable does not mean all your boys and all your girls will be the exactly the same height, but tall parents will tend to have tall children.</p>
<p>Most prestigious means what? They still stoop to draw attention. Poor little whoever who tugs your heart and gets you to read further. Correct, I haven’t started a thread in years and I rarely link. </p>
<p>What I object to is perpetuation of myths and critiques by people outside the process who just “think” they get it. Or heard someone say, or read something, somewhere (including CC.) I like critical thinking and don’t mind anecdotes, when they are claimed as such. Not when little Bobby or Brandon’s tale is treated as a universal. I often point out the slant in the “sources” you use, Bel. And some others.</p>
<p>People are free to dismiss my posts. But I am a part of the process. Enough to make the comments I do. I try to use “ime.”</p>
<p>-so, if there is this “noise,” maybe all the kids didn’t inherit all the right genes?</p>
<p>Calreader - I believe you misunderstood my post, which I believe is entirely accurate.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that Berkeley awarded hardship points. But other UCs do (or did) and since the same essay must be used for all UC campuses, the hardship essay must be geared towards getting those points. I think its funny how Cal, in many ways, seems to not know or care that there are other UC campuses that will use the same essays and application.</p>
<p>Also. I didn’t say that Letters and Sciences required students to write about their science background. S applied (and was accepted) to the College of Chemistry. He was required to write about chemistry and to submit that essay to all the other UCs where he did apply to arts and sciences. He would have much preferred to use his more general essay for those schools, but his Cal application pretty much prevented that. No biggie, I guess, since he got in everywhere. My main point though is that his UC essay topics were NOT of his choosing, and honestly, it seems like not even admissions readers are necessarily aware of that.</p>
<p>1999 was a long time ago, and I’m sure Frontline deliberately selected extreme cases. But even as a supporter of holistic admissions, I found these results somewhat troubling. </p>
<p>SAT scores are not the be all and end all, and they need to be looked at in the context of the student’s opportunities and preparation. But I don’t think they are worthless, either. A sub-500 score in verbal suggests a student with profound weaknesses, and while that may be a function of upbringing and education, I don’t think we should be admitting students based on what they might have been. I’m not even sure that student 5 is going to be better served going to Berkeley than he will be going to a somewhat less competitive school. Given his skill level coming in, he really has no choice but to take only the least demanding classes - if there is any rigor to Berkeley’s grading at all, someone with that background just isn’t going to cut it in serious courses. If he goes to, say, UC-R, he’s still setting himself up for a much better life than the one he’s trying to escape, and will likely experience greater academic success that will open more doors for him than the Berkeley degree with the unimpressive transcript would have. By the way, this is not a case of the valedictorian from the inner city school - coming from what I suspect was at best a mediocre high school, he still only had a good, but not great, average.</p>
<p>As for student 3, I wasn’t terribly impressed by him, and don’t see him as a great candidate for admission to elite privates. Even with all the advantages he has had, his performance in math/science doesn’t suggest particular brilliance. On the other hand, in an admissions system where you’re accepting people in the 800s and 900s and consider a 1240 “high,” I can’t see how a 1550 doesn’t get you more credit and make you an easy admit unless there were glaring weaknesses elsewhere. Even in a good school district, that’s a good score, and not one that every privileged kid who studies hard is capable of achieving. His essay is a bit tin-eared at points, but does suggest passion for science and a reasonable work ethic, his ECs are thin but not non-existent, and he has done as well in his school as the other students have done in theirs. I’m glad he got in despite this one reader’s assessment.</p>
<p>Over at the Gifted kids thread, I’ve been criticized for downplaying the notion of an “anti-gifted bias.” While I stand by what I’ve said there, this kind of reader is an example of where those ideas come from. His or her remarks don’t even address the fact that the courses taken/ECs don’t support extraordinary talent - it just poo poohs the idea that achievement or intelligence really matters much at all. If you’re going to dismiss a 1550 because the kid probably had a lot of time to study, then he might as well not have bothered taking the test at all.</p>
<p>Doughmom, I’m speaking up so others who read this thread don’t have misunderstandings because of your post. You wrote in the present tense when you said that there is an essay that’s intended to be about hardships and challenges. That isn’t the case for any of the UC campuses.</p>
<p>I also don’t think it was the case when your kids were applying to other UC campuses that used to use a point system for comprehensive review. There are lots of factors in the comprehensive review, and the two essays give students a chance to talk about any and all factors that they think are relevant to their applications. There isn’t and wasn’t a “hardship”-only essay, but it sounds like your kids had very good outcomes by reading the prompts as if there was one :-).</p>
<p>You also mentioned that some UC programs in science require students to write about their interest. It isn’t actually “science” in general - it’s two specific professional schools at Berkeley that make this suggestion. I believe none of the other campuses have similar suggestions for their personal statements. I agree that this suggestion makes it a bit awkward for students who are applying to engineering or chemistry at Berkeley and a completely different field at other campuses - or for students who have a wonderful Common App statement that they’d prefer to use for the other campuses, as your son did.</p>
<p>Yes. When UC Statfinder was still up, it indicated that, for 2008-2009, applicants with GPA and SAT scores presented by these 1999 applicants would have very low chances of admission. To have a good chance of admission, an applicant to Berkeley L&S would have needed a 4.0+ UC-weighted GPA and 700+ per section SAT scores, or a 4.2+ UC-weighted GPA and 600+ per section SAT scores. For Berkeley engineering, a good chance would have come with a 4.2+ UC-weighted GPA and 700+ per section SAT scores. Note: UC-weighted GPA is usually about 0.3 to 0.4 higher than unweighted GPA for students who took a decent number of honors/AP courses.</p>
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<p>They also did not say that the “experienced admissions reader” read applications for Berkeley. Since the “experienced admissions reader” gave different opinions from the actual results (e.g. with #3), it is quite possible that the “experienced admissions reader” was using criteria different from what Berkeley specified its admissions readers use.</p>
<p>Discredited by what? The “South L.A. student finds a different world at Cal” article posted in this thread shows why high school grades are not enough to evaluate applicants. The young man profiled was a straight-A student at his high school and salutatorian, but he was over his head at UC Berkeley and at times almost suicidal. His SAT scores, which the story unfortunately did not provide, are a way to compare him with students from better high schools. The Texas Top 10%, based solely on high school class rank, admits some subpar students from high schools where almost no one is 4-year-college material.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, since you care so much about this, why not find another Abigail Fisher to sue the state of California? Heck, you could use applicant #4 from the Frontline piece, assuming he is a white or Asian male. It’s just not fair that he didn’t get in!</p>